Reader: The Church needs to modernize

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The Catholic Church should modernize. With this most recent scandal of sex abuse by Catholic priests, it is time for the Church to be like other religions whose clergy are allowed to marry. They are, after all, still animals, wired for the same procreation desire, so let them join the rest of society, and learn to control themselves as others do.

That, of course, means that contraception should become legal — actually a holy event to prevent our species from overcrowding the world, as we are presently doing.

Why can't the pope realize that his god would not want his species to get out of control? Surely a god would provide means of avoiding that, and so it has, with the science of birth control.

How many know about the Papal Commission on Population and Birth Control (1966) whose tacit purpose was to find a way for the Church to approve contraception without undermining church authority? The commission (lay people) voted 64 to 4 that a change in the church's stand on artificial birth control was both possible and advisable. But when the report was submitted to a commission of 20 cardinals and bishops, six of the prelates abstained, eight voted in favor of recommending the report to the pope, and six voted against it. Through 1967 and 1968 these few negative votes had time to bring sufficient pressure on the pope so that he ignored the advice of the commission and published "Humanae Vitae" in 1968, retaining the ban on artificial contraception.

If the church had modernized back then on this issue, allowing their members to satisfy their normal sexual desires without fear of over-burdening their families (and the world) with too many progeny, it might also have recognized that its priests should be able to live normal lives.